


Local Customs

by ryfkah



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Homeward Bounders - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryfkah/pseuds/ryfkah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Very shortly Jamie realized something wonderful: it seemed that nobody in at Sunnydale High really cared if you had any documentation, or, in fact, if your parents existed at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Local Customs

At first it seemed like it was going to be one of those strict sort of worlds where all the children go to school and have proper families and loads of ID, but very shortly Jamie realized something wonderful: it seemed that nobody in at Sunnydale High really cared if you had any documentation, or, in fact, if your parents existed at all. Jamie couldn’t believe his luck.

And after some careful observation of the town, he realized that there was probably even a way of getting out of going to school altogether. There were all these people in Sunnydale – teenaged people, school-aged people, for the most part – that everyone seemed absolutely determined to ignore. They lived like hobos in local caves and cemeteries, loitered about suspiciously at night, and occasionally ran about in broad daylight holding raincoats over their heads, and all the policemen and teachers and other responsible types looked the other way and pretended intently that they didn’t exist. It was a golden opportunity, the perfect scam, and Jamie intended to take advantage of it.

The process was easy as anything. Step one: he had to establish his cover. Jamie informed all his school acquaintances, loudly, that he was going to spend all night in the cemetery on a dare, and if anyone wanted to join him they’d be more than welcome. Predictably, no one did. One older boy whom Jamie quite liked came up and warned him to stay home. Jamie said, in his best scornful picking-fights-with-the-boys-at-Queen-Elizabeth’s tone, that he could be frightened of the dark all he liked, but Jamie wasn’t going to be. He felt a little bad about that afterwards, but at least Harris would think Jamie was getting what was coming to him.

Next he had to create his disguise. It didn’t have to be anything fancy, he’d worked out. Real vamps might have the bumpy faces and so on, but people were so used to not looking at them it was doubtful whether anyone would notice, and besides, there were all kinds of other varieties of terribly fake-looking green people and red people and so on wandering around as well, and it’s not like anyone accused that lot of not being properly supernatural. So after school Jamie went to the local party store to shoplift a set of decent-quality fake fangs, popped into the bathroom for the judicious application of interesting pallor, and decided that would probably be enough for his purposes.

The scam had the benefit of not being complicated. The only step left was ‘profit’. No one at school would ever expect to see him again; he could wander into supermarkets and steal everything without anyone lifting a finger; even the real vampires might leave him alone, although there was a strong possibility that they weren’t that stupid. And even then, so what? Good old Rule One would keep him all right, and blood loss would work even better than the makeup for giving him pale skin. Sunnydale was a good place for a boy who couldn’t die.

Having judiciously waited out the sun, Jamie wriggled out the small window of the bathroom to the outside and prepared to spend the next few months in ease and luxury. He was wandering down an alley near the cemetary and contemplating making a raid on the pizza store when he was tackled to the ground by a blonde girl with a sharp stick.

“Hey!” said Jamie.

The blonde girl squinted down at him, and prodded him cautiously with the stick. “You,” she said, “are a _weird_ -looking vampire.”

Jamie said something unprintable and thudded his head back against the pavement.

Apparently he hadn’t factored in quite everything, after all.


End file.
